tion of large numbers of prizes, and in the examination by committees of questions of scientific, and sometimes of national, interest. Friedel played an important part in this work, and his competency in chemistry, mineralogy, and mathematics, together with his evident fairmindedness, gave great weight to his opinion among his colleagues.

There is much significance in the way in which the title, Member of the Institute, is used as the only record of occupation placed upon Friedel's gravestone, and it is quite in accord with French usage to consider this distinction one of the highest that the nation can bestow; thus Napoleon, in familiar letters, having nothing to do with science, signs himself, "Bonaparte, Général en Chef, Membre de l'Institut."

The circumstances of Friedel's family, as well as his subsequent position, favoured the development of his scientific career. His childhood, passed at Strasbourg, brought him, even during school years, in contact with men of science, and his inclination for scientific studies was favoured by his parents.

He took his Bachelor's degree in letters in 1849, and that in science in 1850. He then entered his father's counting-house, and while there had an opportunity of attending lectures by Pasteur, Daubrée, Bertin, and Lereboullet at Strasbourg University. His stay in the countinghouse lasted only a year, and, as might have been expected, the attractions of science presented by such men drew him away from

commerce.

In 1851, he went to Paris to live with his maternal grandfather, G. L. Duvernoy, Professor at the Collège de France and the Museum of Natural History. He took the Licentiate degree in mathematics at the Sorbonne in 1854, and that in physical science July 7th, 1855. While pursuing these studies, he commenced research work at the Museum, and a letter, dated December 21st, 1854, speaks of the discovery of two new faces in crystals of corundum, given him for examination by Dufrénoy (he had refused a place of assistant with that mineralogist), and also of a research confided to him by Wurtz.

He followed the lectures of Senarmont at the School of Mines, and formed a strong personal attachment to him while engaged in mineralogical studies under his guidance. In 1856, Friedel was appointed Curator of the mineralogical collection of the School of Mines, then under the direction of Dufrénoy, and for the remainder of his life was actively occupied with enriching that important collection. He was at first attracted by the crystallographical side of mineralogy, and then towards optics, until, at the suggestion of Senarmont, he thought of devoting himself to mathematics and becoming an astronomer; but soon the chemical side absorbed his attention, and during the remainder of his life his time was divided between pure chemistry

and chemical mineralogy, although he always took especial pleasure in the examination of crystalline forms. Somewhat later, he was advised by Pasteur to seek an entrance to the Academy of Science in the section of mineralogy, to which Pasteur himself belonged, but Friedel preferred to make chemistry his principal study.

On November 10th, 1854, Friedel entered Wurtz's laboratory, and soon became its most distinguished pupil. There were some sixteen places, of which usually one-third were occupied by foreigners, particularly Russians, Germans, Austrians, and Italians. The rooms at the School of Medicine were inconvenient, having been designed for other purposes, and the balances were placed in an anatomical lecture room; yet this school succeeded in some measure to that of Liebig, and was visited by chemists of all nations; for European science still held to the traditions of the time of Humboldt, and a sojourn, however short, at Paris was considered a desirable part of a scientific education. Friedel's researches upon acetones and aldehydes were made at this time, 1857-1863, in the laboratory of the School of Medicine, and his views of their constitution, and his discovery of secondary propylic alcohol, were immediately recognised as important contributions to chemical science.

In 1866, the privilege of a small laboratory at the School of Mines was attached to the place of Curator of the mineralogical collection, and it was there that Friedel's work in mineralogy was done, as well as the researches upon silicon compounds and the aluminium chloride reaction. He had, between 1866 and 1880, an apartment in the buildings of the School of Mines. In 1869, he took his Doctorate degree, offering two theses, one upon acetones and aldehydes, and the other upon the pyroelectric properties of crystals. In 1871, he gave the lectures in mineralogy at the Normal School (Ecole normale supérieure), replacing Des Cloizeaux.

In 1876, he was appointed Professor of Mineralogy at the Sorbonne, succeeding Delafosse, and he there organised a laboratory for mineralogy. Two years later, he was chosen Member of the Academy of Science in the chemical section, filling the place left vacant by the death of Regnault.

The death of Wurtz in 1884 left Friedel the oldest representative of Wurtz's school and he succeeded to Wurtz's professorship of organic chemistry at the Sorbonne, exchanging this chair for that of mineralogy. The laboratory accommodation for chemical students was very insufficient at Paris and the old buildings at the Sorbonne were still more unsuited to such work than were those of the School of Medicine. A project for new and greatly enlarged buildings was under consideration, but with small prospect of immediate realisation, so that Friedel devoted his energy to the construction of a temporary

laboratory building beyond the Luxembourg Garden in the Rue Michelet, where also the inorganic laboratories of the Sorbonne under Troost were located. These rooms, although lacking the luxury of the modern laboratory, proved to be convenient and the places for about fourteen students were always filled.

In January, 1895, the new laboratories at the Sorbonne, built upon Friedel's plans, were opened with places for thirty students in organic chemistry, and at the same time he organised a three years' course of lectures and laboratory instruction in industrial chemistry at the provisional laboratories in the Rue Michelet. Such instruction had

heretofore been wanting in Paris. It was undertaken at Friedel's instigation by the Municipal Government, and the attention required by the initial steps, and afterwards by the direction of this new course, formed an important occupation during the last four years of his life.

He took the chief part in 1899 in founding the Revue Générale de Chemie pure et appliquée, which is largely devoted to industrial applications. Friedel was associated with Wurtz in editing the Dictionaire de Chemie pure et appliquée and after Wurtz's death in 1884 became the chief editor of the supplements, of which the second has only progressed to the letter G. During the later years of his life, editorial work, together with the work upon committees and administrative duties, engrossed more and more of his time, and he often regretfully looked back upon the hours spent upon experiments in his laboratory which he ever considered the most enjoyable.

He was one of the founders of the French Chemical Society, four times its President, and a constant attendant at its sittings. He took the initiative in founding the French Society for the advancement of Science in 1885, and presided at the meeting at Nancy in 1886. He presided at the International Congress of Chemists held in 1892 at Geneva for the reform of the nomenclature of the fatty acid series, and up to the time of his death was occupied with the arrangement of a similar meeting to attempt the construction of a common system of nomenclature for the other classes of organic compounds.

He was awarded the Davy medal by the Royal Society in 1880; received the degree D.C.L. from Oxford University in 1894.

The following societies conferred their membership or honorary membership on Friedel: Foreign member of the English Chemical Society, 1876; Industrial Society of Mulhouse, 1879; Physical Society of Geneva, 1880; Royal Society of Turin, 1882; Academy dei Lincei, 1883; Academy of Munich, 1883; Royal Academy of Lisbon, 1890; Natural History Society of Maxon, Society Antonio Alzato Mendio, 1890; Roy Society of Brussels, 1892; Society of Physics and Chemistry of Bucharest, 1892; Literary and Philosophical